


five times clint lost someone, and one time he didn't

by andibeth82



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Loss, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-28
Updated: 2018-04-28
Packaged: 2019-04-29 02:31:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14463087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andibeth82/pseuds/andibeth82
Summary: Clint loses Laura first. Lila, Cooper, and Nathaniel are next. It's nothing he can prepare himself for.





	five times clint lost someone, and one time he didn't

**Author's Note:**

> All credit to @spectralarchers for the prompt which became the title, because she knows my weakness when it comes to post-film brainstorming.
> 
> It goes without saying, but: spoilers for Infinity War.

**I: Laura**

 

He’d run to the phone as soon as he’d heard it start to ring. Of course, since was home, running included navigating a very domestically challenged obstacle course that involved toys, papers, scattered paint chips, a carefully placed mug of coffee, and three children sprawled out on the floor, their limbs splayed in various directions.

“Hello?”

He barks out the words a little more harshly than he means to, but also, he knows this isn’t a call for his family. Maybe it’s a call from Natasha, but it’s definitely a call about _something_ not related to his normal life because this particular phone — an old Samsung flip reworked into a modern technological wonder from its 90’s heydays — hasn’t been used regularly in at least a year and a half.

“Hello?”

There’s silence on the other end. But there’s also screaming and yelling and from what it sounds like, a whole bunch of chaos. Clint frowns and hangs up.

A strange sensation pokes at his gut, making the hairs near the nape of his neck curl, as if he knows something’s wrong and this is supposed to be a weird kind of warning. Clint glances up at the scene in front of him -- Cooper and Lila sitting on the floor reading, Nathaniel playing with some game on the iPad that Laura had grudgingly allowed him to use only because Clint made the argument that technology, as bad as it could be for children, also provided helpful tools like learning programs. Laura appears suddenly behind him; he hears her approach long before she speaks.

“Who was that?”

Clint shrugs, trying to ward off the uneasy feeling. “Wrong number,” he says, hoping she won’t pick up on any of the emotional and physical tics she knows like the back of her hand.

Laura narrows her eyes. “Nat?”

“Nope,” Clint replies easily, throwing the phone back onto the small desk table. It lands softly on a pile of old grocery receipts. “Not Nat.”

“Hill?”

“I don’t know,” Clint says, trying not to sound frustrated. “Look, I know it seems suspicious considering it came from...that.” He breaks off to wave his hand at the phone. “But it’s probably nothing. Maybe some dumb pocket call from Fury.”

Laura nods, but Clint can tell that she’s not entirely assured. He reaches out and rubs her arm, tugging her towards him.

“Hey,” he says softly as she folds into him. “Come on. I know stuff like this is hard to shake, but it’s been two years, right? And we’re safe. Nothing has happened, except our kids have gotten more annoying.”

Laura laughs and Clint pulls away, smiling at the dark hair that frames her face, accentuating features a little fuller from three kids and a little more lined from more birthdays. He lets his eyes move to the light but still noticeable scar across her eyebrow from the day Cooper had swung his baseball bat into her forehead by accident and takes in the way her lips part unconsciously, two pale lines that he knows every crease and every bump of -- she’s changed throughout the years and even more in the course of the two years since he’s hung up his bow, but to Clint, she’s still beautiful.

“Clint --”

Her words are cut off suddenly and Clint blinks, because he’s not quite sure if he’s seeing things correctly. He’s still holding his wife in his arms, but she’s disappearing before him -- her fingers, her legs, the new shirt he’d recently bought her as a birthday gift. Laura’s breathing quickens as she realizes what’s happening, her face morphing into an expression of pure fear. The entire moment seems to be happening in slow motion, like he’s paralyzed in some horrible dream he can’t wake up from, but he knows that time is probably speeding forward faster than he realizes.

“Cl --”

He watches in horror as the dust creeping across her body reaches her cheeks, and then her lips...and then she’s gone and he’s holding nothing, fingers grasping at air.

“Laura!”

His terrified voice, the one he’s hoped he’d never had to use at the farm, echoes throughout the house and sends his children bolting up and running towards him. Nate’s slower to reach Clint’s side than his brother and sister due to stocky toddler legs, but he seems to know something’s wrong, because he starts crying loudly long before he latches onto Clint’s legs.

Nate wails, and Cooper and Lila stand in front of Clint looking horrified, and Clint doesn’t know what the hell he’s supposed to do.

 

**II: Cooper, Lila, and Nathaniel**

 

Clint feels like he has no right to be going about the rest of his day after his wife literally disappeared into thin air with no warning or explanation. But the faces of his children after his outburst had been bad enough, and Clint knows he can’t let them see that anything is wrong.

So he channels his years of SHIELD versus fatherhood experience, pulls himself together, and puts on his most soothing voice as he explains to his kids that “mommy just decided to go out for awhile” while helping Nate walk up the stairs after suggesting they call it an early night and eat ice cream in bed.

“But you sounded angry,” Cooper points out as he follows Clint, gripping a full pint of Ben & Jerry’s between his fingers.

“Yeah, you yelled scared,” Lila adds, holding four spoons in tiny hands.

Clint closes his eyes briefly as he reaches the upper landing. “I know,” he says, turning around. “I’m sorry I worried you. It was just some grown-up stuff, okay? Everything is fine, and we’re going to have our own sleepover while mommy’s out. She’s going to be really upset she missed out on ice cream, you know.”

Cooper and Lila look unconvinced but Clint continues to lead them confidently into his bedroom, turning on the light and letting Nate run forward in zig-zagging awkward lines until he plops himself down in the large beanbag chair. Cooper and Lila climb onto the bed, Lila diligently setting a paper towel square on the covers before Cooper places the ice cream carton down.

“Will mommy be home when I wake up tomorrow?” Lila asks expectantly, opening the carton. Clint picks up Nate as he prepares to join them.

“Of course,” he lies, because he doesn’t think he can actually say anything otherwise if he wants to keep pretending everything is normal. Hell, maybe everything _would_ be normal. Maybe this was just some random government trick or something Steve knew about. He’d call Nat once the kids fell asleep he thinks, watching as Cooper and Lila dig into their ice cream while loudly debating the merits of always reliable Phish Food versus the new Avengers flavor, Stark Raving Hazelnut.

 _Yeah_ , Clint decides, trying to feel optimistic. _Nat would know what to do_. She always knew what to do. Maybe she’d even break her promise and come home; Laura was family to her as much as she was to Clint and her children.

“Want some, daddy?”

Clint’s torn from of his thoughts by his daughter offering out her spoon, and he can’t help but smile even as sticky vanilla drips and leaves splotches on the bedspread.

“Absolutely,” he says, shifting Nate in his lap so he can lean forward and take the spoon from her.

“Dad?”

Clint glances over at Cooper, choking on air as he drops the spoon from Lila’s hand. It’s Laura all over again, except this time it’s Cooper who is disappearing, fading away into ash and dust. Lila screams when she notices what’s happening her brother, and Clint watches in horror as she starts to fade with him.

“It’s okay,” he says helplessly as Lila starts to reach for him with tears running down her face. “It’s okay, it’s okay, I _promise_ it’s okay.” He holds Nate more tightly, as if by doing so he can protect him from everything that’s happening, even though he has no idea _what’s_ happening.

“No, no, no...”

He feels like he can’t watch as Nate’s face takes on a confused look, his eyes bright as he disappears into dust along with his brother and sister. In an instant, Clint is left with nobody in his arms; the ice cream carton tips forward on the bed, spilling all over the covers and the spoon lies useless next to it.

Clint lets out his second anguished scream of the day but it falls on deaf ears, because no one is around to hear him yell.

 

**III: Wanda**

 

He wakes in the middle of night, jerked upright as if someone has stuck a hot iron in his side. Tangled in covers, he nearly falls out of bed, only catching himself at the last minute.

_Clint._

He jerks his head around, trying to figure out who’s speaking to him. He’s disoriented from being disturbed out of sleep and he doesn’t know where he is or who is even talking to him.

“What’s going on?” he asks the darkness, not caring how stupid he sounds.

_Clint, something is happening…_

And then he recognizes the voice, clear as day, like a hammer has exploded over his skull chastising him for daring to forget who would try to communicate with him like this.

“Wanda!”

Clint does fall out of bed, moving too fast as he reacts and landing hard on the floor. He groans into the faded wood as pain pulses through his side, his ankle throbbing from where he’s smacked it against the bed frame.

“Wanda, tell me where you are. What’s happening? Are you in trouble? What’s wrong?”

_Vision...it failed...we all are…_

Wanda’s voice fades out on the last word and Clint reaches forward, as if she’s right there in the room with him.

“Wanda!”

He feels it, because it’s like being punched in the gut, because he’s felt it before. It’s not the first time Wanda has reached out telepathically like this. He’s gotten used to it and he knows how it feels when she makes contact -- and how it feels when she breaks it.

He feels it, because he knows when she stops talking that she’s gone in the same way Laura was gone, in the same way that Cooper and Lila and Nathaniel were gone. Fear courses through Clint’s chest, fear mixed with anger and helplessness at being stuck in his house in the middle of the night while something very bad happens to someone he loves.

“Wanda!”

The wind blows through an open window, carrying the remains of his cracked voice into the early dawn, and he feels entirely alone.

 

**IV: Maria Hill**

 

Maria Hill checks in every now and again. (Added security, she explains, but Clint -- unable to hide the smug pride after years of being around her 24/7 -- once boasted to Laura that the only reason Hill called was because she missed yelling at him about something that wasn’t even his fault.)

“Barton, are you okay?”

He shakes his head, caught off guard by her greeting. “What do you mean, am I okay?”

“Dammit, Barton! Get your head out of those crops and turn on the news or something!”

There’s an urgency in Hill’s voice that Clint can’t ignore and he walks quickly to the television, picking up the remote and flipping channels with one hand. His brows knit together in confusion at what he sees -- a maelstrom of turmoil, people running haphazardly through the streets like it’s the Battle of New York all over again, helicopters careening through the sky and cars crashing into each other.

“What the _fuck_ is happening?”

“Hell if I fucking know.” Hill sounds annoyed but also worried, and Clint doesn’t like that. His former boss was human, but she also one of the most stable people he knew -- and for all the shit she’d been through both at SHIELD and in her personal life, Maria Hill didn’t do worried unless something really, really bad was happening.

“Clint, I need you to call Natasha. Find out if she’s okay.”

“I just spoke to her two days ago,” Clint protests. It’s not a lie, Natasha had checked in two days ago to wish Cooper a happy birthday, though she remained tight-lipped about where she was at any given time whenever she called -- even to him. (“It’s for your safety,” she cautioned when he grumbled about it.) He knew Natasha hadn’t been anywhere near New York thanks to the fact she was keeping a low profile -- and so, he tells himself as he watches the destruction play out on screen, Natasha was fine, and he’d call her when he got off the phone to confirm that.

“Fuck. Barton --”

The line goes dead and it hits all at once, the abruptness of her disappearance the same way everyone else in his life had seemingly vanished in front of him. He drops the phone as if he’s been burned, the receiver clattering to the floor with the dial tone still groaning loudly.

On television, people are turning to ash, fading away as if they’ve never existed at all.

 

**V: Nick Fury**

 

He calls Fury right after he calls Maria, after he’s picked up the phone from the ground and typed in a number that’s still branded on the mental speed dial in the back of his brain. The phone rings and rings, and then goes to a cryptic but familiar voicemail.

“Nick -- Nick, Hill called me,” Clint babbles into the phone, trying to control his burgeoning panic. “Nick, call me back. Call me _now_ , I need your help.”

He hangs up and then dials again, pacing his living room. The voicemail picks up again and he stomps his foot so hard against the floor that the potted plants on the windowsill vibrate.

“Dammit Nick, come on! Answer your fucking phone!”

He calls five more time, getting no answer. Deep down, he knows exactly why Fury isn’t answering, but he can’t seem to make himself believe it.

“Fuck,” he mutters as his eyes start to burn. He turns his head towards the window, trying to comprehend how the sun can be shining so brightly when everyone he’s ever loved or cared about has abandoned him.

“ _Fuck_.”

 

**\+ I: Natasha**

 

He’s well on his way to drunk when he calls Natasha.

After accepting that Fury was the latest casualty in whatever the fuck was going on, he’d sat in his living room staring at the walls, lost in distracted thought. When he had finally moved again, the sun was starting to set and the farm was feeling even more quiet than usual -- a quiet that was different than Clint would be used to if Laura was running errands or the kids were at school, a quiet that seemed to be a reminder of the fact that he was now truly alone.

He walks to the pantry, sits down on the floor, and chooses the first bottle of liquor he sees -- a half-filled Pinot Noir that Laura had opened a few days ago to celebrate getting through another week with no sprains, broken bones, or tantrums. After finishing it way too fast, he opens another bottle and is halfway to killing that one when he pulls his phone out of his pocket.

He doesn’t want to do it. He doesn’t want to call Natasha, because he doesn’t think he can handle her either not picking up or picking up only to disappear. The losses he’s acquired in less than 24 hours have already done him in, and he thinks losing Natasha might be the ultimate final blow.

But he needs to know -- he _has_ to know if she’s okay -- and he’s terrified she won’t be.

Clint gets another third of the bottle swallowed before he works up the courage to punch in the number he has for Natasha’s secret line, his fingers shaking as he hits the speaker button.

One ring. Two.

Three.

“Clint?”

“ _Tasha_?” He doesn’t know whether the emotion in his voice is more visible because he’s been drinking or because he’s relieved, and he collapses against the wall of the pantry, sending a collection of pasta boxes tumbling to the floor. “Tasha, thank god.”

“Clint,” Natasha says again, her voice calm and a little sad. “Clint, are you okay?”

“Yeah,” he says, even though he’s really not. He knows what she’s asking, though. “But I -- Laura --”

“ _Fuck_ ,” Natasha breathes, cutting him off. The fact that she seems to know what Clint is referring to before he even finishes his sentence only scares him more.

“What happened? Why... _why_?”

He’s losing his words faster than he can formulate them, and Natasha breathes quietly on the other end of the phone.

“Thanos. It’s -- you know Thanos.”

“I know Thanos,” Clint repeats, his brain feeling fuzzy. “I don’t understand. I thought he was in space or something.”

“He was. But he came here,” Natasha says quietly. “And he wanted to wipe out half of humanity, if he could.” Her voice breaks. “We tried to fight him, to stop it, but he...I’m okay.” She swallows. “And Steve, and Thor. We’re okay. But Vision and Barnes, and Sam --”

“Wanda,” he murmurs, closing his eyes as the room spins. “Laura and Cooper and Lila and Nathaniel. Maria. Nick.” He pauses to steady his voice, because saying their names out loud makes it real all over again.

“Clint, I don’t know why...I don’t know how to fix it,” Natasha says brokenly. “And I didn’t know if you were okay.”

“I didn’t know if you were okay,” Clint says, wishing she was here and he could hold her just to ensure that she wasn’t gone. “God, Nat. What do we do?”

Natasha doesn’t answer, and Clint rubs his fists against his eyes the way Lila liked to do when she was overly tired.

“Where are you?”

Natasha hesitates, as if she’s halfway to talking but isn’t sure whether to continue.

“Wakanda,” she says finally. “We’re all in Wakanda.”

“Stay there,” he instructs, struggling to stand despite his lingering inebriation. “I’m coming to you. Find a way to get me there that won’t kill me and if I don’t hear from you in five minutes, I’m calling you back.”

“Clint.”

“ _Tasha_ ,” Clint snaps, hearing the change in her voice. “This isn’t normal. This isn’t a fucking fight on an airport tarmac because no one can agree on government regulations and this isn’t a killer robot we can just blow up, everyone I love is suddenly _gone_ , so don’t you _dare_ try to tell me --”

“Clint,” Natasha repeats, her voice sliding back to soft and gentle. “I love you.”

He forces back a rogue sob as her words hit.

“I love you too.”

He rocks forward on his feet, finding his balance, and walks out of the pantry. It’s darker now, the sun having fully set and twilight streaking across the farmlands, small bits of light dancing under the stars.

_“How long are you going to do this?”_

_“We’ll fight as long as there’s a world to protect,” Natasha answered. They sat under this same twilight sky, and Laura promised to cook her one last homemade dinner, and Lila and Cooper were preparing their special dessert, and Nate was sleeping on a blanket next to both of them. And maybe Hill and Fury would call at some point but maybe they wouldn’t, and that was okay, because Clint knew he could count on them to check in eventually. After all, he wasn’t just retired. He was Clint, and everyone knew he would always be tempted to get back into the fight, even with a government-imposed deal hanging over his head._

_“At least promise me that if it gets too dangerous, you’ll come back,” he said, entwining their fingers together._

_Natasha laughed lightly. “When have I ever promised to do something stupid like that?”_

_Clint smiled. “I know. I guess, just...just know that we’ll always be here. All of us. Okay? If you ever need a break, you’ve always got somewhere to go.”_

Clint kneels down on the floor of the living room, pulling up a distressed floorboard, staring at the small hidden alcove filled with weapons. His bow stands straight, a quiver of arrows next to it along with some handguns and a few different bow staffs. He takes a photo out of his pocket -- the picture he’s been carrying around of his family, everyone he loves smiling and whole and calm.

“I’m going to bring you back,” he promises as he stares at the smiling faces, feeling his stomach clench in anger and determination. “All of you. I’ll fight as long as there’s a world to protect.”

He chooses the samurai sword, and the phone in his pocket rings.

 

**Author's Note:**

> If you thought I didn't come out of this movie with my first thought being "oh my god, how would the ending affect Clint's family?" I don't know who you thought I was.
> 
> Find me on tumblr @isjustprogress for more fic and flail.


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